A Surprise Upon Awakening

I woke up and in the mirror, saw a stranger-- a face not mine, but like my own. So I wondered: Am I mad now? But no... if you think you're insane, you're not-- the mind's own Catch-22. Still... why did this face seem to belong to another? I sensed my soul at work: not quite done with its nightly dream-making, weaving entire worlds from strands of memory-- bits of ego-- clouds of imagination. My soul was seeing my flesh as it really exists-- merely a convenient container designed to navigate life and this world of the temporary, the fleeting, the lessening shadows. And so my immortal part gave its living doppelganger a great and wondrous gift: This is what you really are as flesh and bone-- a waxen mold, a vanity, almost an illusion ....